What Americans fear the most

A new survey on the “fears, worries and concerns of Americans” was released this week — just in time for Halloween.

Conducted by researchers at Chapman University in Orange, California, the survey involved a representative sample of more than 1,500 adults. The information gathered was divided into four basic categories: personal fears, crime, natural disasters and “fear factors” (the factors that are the strongest predictors of Americans’ fears).

Here are the top five personal fears of Americans, according to the survey:

Walking alone at night

Becoming the victim of identity theft

Safety on the Internet

Being the victim of a mass/random shooting

Public speaking

And here are the top five worries or concerns of Americans:

Having identity stolen on the Internet

Corporate surveillance of Internet activity

Running out of money in the future

Government surveillance of Internet activity

Becoming ill or sick

A persistent fear of violent crime

Violent crime elicited high levels of fear among the survey’s participants, despite the fact that, as the Chapman researchers point out, the overall incidence of violent crime in the U.S. has been declining for two decades.

“What we found when we asked a series of questions pertaining to fears of various crimes is that a majority of Americans not only fear crimes such as child abduction, gang violence, sexual assaults and others, but they also believe these crimes [as well as human trafficking, mass riots, pedophilia, school shootings and serial killings] have increased over the past 20 years,” said Edward Day, a sociologist at Chapman University, in a press statement released with the survey.

The crime that Americans are most optimistic about, according to the survey, is “mass riots.” About 23 percent of the people polled said that the prevalence of mass rioting has decreased in recent years.

Regional variations

When it came to natural disasters, the ones most feared by Americans in the survey were the following:

Tornados/hurricanes

Earthquakes

Floods

Pandemics or major epidemics

Power outages

The survey also found that the vast majority of Americans — even ones living in regions hardest hit by natural disasters — are unprepared for such emergencies. Only 25 percent of the people surveyed, for example, said they had emergency kits containing food, water, clothing and medical supplies to help them through a natural disaster. (I actually find that number to be surprisingly high.)

Not surprisingly, perhaps, is the finding that the levels of concern about natural disasters — and the types of disasters that elicit concern — vary from region to region. While 35 percent of the survey’s participants who lived in western states said they were “worried” or “very worried” about natural disasters, only 19 percent of those living in the Midwest expressed that level of concern.

And the survey’s Midwest participants listed their fears of natural disasters in a slightly different order:

Tornados/hurricanes

Floods

Pandemics or major epidemics

Earthquakes

Power outages

Two key ‘fear factors’

The final part of the survey focused on what types of people tend to fear certain things and what factors might play a role in those fears.

Two factors were found to be the most consistent predictors of fear: having a low level of education and watching a lot of television, particularly talk shows and shows that feature real-life crime.

Of course, as the Chapman researchers point out, that doesn’t meant that these factors cause people to be more fearful. For example, people who regularly watch talk and true-crime shows may already harbor a lot of fears about the world — fears that draw them to those types of shows on TV.

One final interesting tidbit from the survey: Republicans expressed higher levels of fear about “today’s youth, the government and immigrants,” while Democrats had higher levels of fear about “personal safety, pollution and man-made disasters.”

You’ll find an expansive explanation of the survey and its findings on Chapman University’s website. The researchers plan to conduct the survey every year. It will be interesting to see how our fears and concerns change over time.

Comments (2)

Anxieties, Fears & Manipulation
A number of these fears are found in the news quite a lot, as noted. I wonder which came first, chickens, or eggs. The sense that people have no measurable impact upon their own destiny?

A word that has fallen out of favor, out of its past overuse: stress.

Differentiating people by their politics and what fears lurk in their marrow is an interesting exercise.

This discussion could be extended to denial of fears, as well. Some people just refuse to believe climate change is something to worry about, while at the same time fretting about their kids’ futures. Others still, cannot fathom why the rest of the world is so blasé about the End of the World.

I have read about and actually was in the ER at a hospital .where the person was out of control and I thought my safety was at stake. What is happening that the ER's in hospitals are being subjected to people who are out of control and ready to harm and kill anyone. These people should be admitted to a totally separate part of the ER. I waited 7 hours to get admitted to the hospital and spent most of that time by a person who they finally were able to get under control. Why should innocent people be subjected to this kind of behavior? People go to the ER because they have a medical situation that cannot wait for another day and for the most part not feeling well. So where do you go to get immediate medical assistance when the hospital is not the safest place? Virginia